


As Time Goes By

by Colubrina



Series: Rare Pair Harry Potter One Shots [19]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28655385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colubrina/pseuds/Colubrina
Summary: Pansy and Luna fall in love in the years after the Battle of Hogwarts.
Relationships: Luna Lovegood/Pansy Parkinson
Series: Rare Pair Harry Potter One Shots [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1459201
Comments: 15
Kudos: 40





	As Time Goes By

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for the-witch-of-the-forest

**Battle of Hogwarts + 1 day**

Pansy hated her life.She hated Hogwarts, and she hated Harry Potter, and she hated Draco Malfoy, and she hated her parents, and she hated the mercifully-dead, crazy Dark Lord, and she hated everything and everyone.She hated that there was blood under her fingernails she’d first gotten when she hysterically turned bodies over looking for Draco, who’d gone off with his parents and not bothered to tell anyone, meaning her, that he was fine.She hated that no one would speak to her because she’d said the unthinkable and tried to turn over Potter.She hated herself.

She’d spent the day stomping around Hogwarts cleaning up the things bodies leave behind when they lie on the ground leaking out blood and ooze and bits of things she’d rather have not known about.She knew about them now.She had them under her fingernails now.

She pushed some of her lank, dirty hair out of her eyes, cursed when it fell back, and prepared to return to making herself _useful_.She would prove she was more than what people thought, and if that meant scrubbing up horrible things while everyone else hugged their families and pretended they didn’t see her, didn’t see any of her ilk, then fine.

Her ilk steered clear of her too, however, lest being anathema was contagious.

The bucket sloshed some of its disgusting water out onto the floor when she went to pick it up and move it to the next spot and she swore again. 

“Let me help you.” 

Pansy looked up and scowled at the daft Ravenclaw who’d tied her pretty blonde hair back into some kind of grim braid.“I don’t need it,” she said.“Go help one of your friends.”

Luna Lovegood picked the bucket up anyway and carried it away and Pansy trailed after her.“I was using that,” she said helplessly as Luna dumped the contents out onto the dirt and then tucked the bucket away next to a felled column. 

“You’re tired,” Luna said.“Go home.The dead will still be here.I mean, they'd won’t be, of course.Not really. Not in the ways that matter.Not even their bodies, I suppose. But their intestines will.”

Pansy looked at all the people who didn’t see her anyway, wouldn’t see her, and gave up.“Fine,” she said.“I’m gone.” 

**Battle of Hogwarts + 10 days**

The thing about fire whiskey, Pansy thought, was that it wasn’t actually on fire.This seemed like a remarkably profound observation and she wished she had someone to share it with, but, since she didn’t, she just downed the glass of the non-flaming whiskey and bit her lip as she regarded the way the light hit the tumbler.It flickered and made pretty patterns on the table at the pub where no one saw her.Even the barmaid managed to take her order and bring her her drink while letting her eyes glide over her. 

“Maybe the light is the fire,” she said out loud. 

She waved for another drink without looking up and when a hand put it in front of her she was going to mutter thanks until the body attached to the hand sat down and Luna Lovegood said, “Hi.”

“Oh,” Pansy said. “It’s you.”

“I think so,” Luna agreed.“Though I haven’t looked in a mirror lately, so I might have changed.”

Pansy let her eyes trace along the woman.Same blonde hair as always, now with what looked like wilted weeds tucked into it, same grey eyes, same gentle smile. “You’re you,” she said.She raised her glass. “To the prettiest Ravenclaw.”

Luna dimpled at her.“I didn’t know you thought I was pretty,” she said.

Pansy hated when pretty girls pretended not to be.She’d heard the way Potter and his crew of popular misfits called her ugly and the closest thing she’d ever had to a boyfriend hadn’t been able to pay attention to her at the one dance he’d taken her to; three years had passed and she still hadn’t forgiven him for ignoring her to gape at Granger all night.She’d spent a lot of time looking in the mirror after than when no one was around and she’d come to the conclusion he was right.Potter was right.Granger was right.She was plain and had an ugly nose and it was no wonder that no matter how she’d tried, she hadn't been able to get Draco to ever really care about her.Not pretty enough for him, she supposed.

“You’re all right,” she said now, sourly, to Luna.“If you like pale girls with radishes in their hair.”

“It’s carrot tops,” Luna said.“Do you?”

“Do I what?”Pansy demanded.She knew she’d had a lot to drink, and she knew Luna had a reputation for not making sense, but she was having more trouble following the woman than she would have expected,even with all that.

“Like pale girls with carrots in their hair?”

Pansy had lifted her glass halfway to her mouth when she realized Luna said what sounded like a proposition.If Greg Goyle had said that to her, it would have been a proposition.He would have followed it with a suggestion they go snog behind the mermaid statue.Pansy wasn’t sure what it meant from Luna.

“You’re nice enough, I guess,” Pansy said, setting the glass back down.

“Nice enough to go home with?”Luna asked.

Pansy blinked at her a few times.“I need a sobriety potion,” she said.There was no way she could figure out what might be happening if she were drunk.

Luna nodded. “Consent is very important,” she said.

**Battle of Hogwarts + 100 days**

“You are just so beautiful,” Luna said.She poked her toe at Pansy.“You have the cutest nose.”

Pansy made a grouchy sound and rolled onto her stomach.Luna liked mornings.She rose with the dawn and sometimes, horror of horrors, she sang.She painted pictures she claimed she needed the early light for her to properly see, and she made elaborate breakfasts of baked goods that usually, though not always, included all the ingredients the recipie called for.

“You have to stop disagreeing with me,” Luna said. “It’s rude.”

“You’re delusional,” Pansy said, the words muffled by her pillow.“Crazy, delusional- “

“Pretty,” Luna said.“You think I’m pretty.”

Pansy rolled back onto the side and squinted at the woman whose flat she’d never quite left.“Yes,” she said.“I think you’re pretty.”

“I know,” Luna said, as pleased with herself as a cat in the sun.“It’s what you called me the night you hit on me.”

Pansy sat up at that blatant rewrite of their history.“You hit on me,” she said, taking the muffin Luna handed her.“I didn’t hit on you.”

“You called me pretty,” Luna said.From her perspective, that clearly meant the argument was over and Pansy had already learned not to argue when Luna got that tone. Whenever she tried, they ended up going round in circles that got more and more complex until she’d lost the whole string of her thoughts and Luna laughed at her. 

Life lesson:don’t date a Ravenclaw, Pansy thought.She took a bite out of the muffin.Luna had remembered the sugar this time and added something new.“Almond extract?” Pansy asked.

Luna smiled in that way she had where her mouth curled up in slow motion, then her eyes squinted, finally her nose wrinkled up, and Pansy’s heart did that little skipping thing she’d felt more and more frequently lately.“And I stirred it under the moon,” she said. “It’s waning gibbous.”

Pansy decided it was best to not ask what that had to do with baking.“Well, it worked,” she said.“Thanks, moon.”

“You’re welcome, flower,” Luna said. 

**Battle of Hogwarts + 1,000 days**

“You have to wear robes,” Pansy said.Her voice took on a certain hysteria when Luna didn’t react and just kept brushing her hair.“Luna, my parents will be there.I don’t even get along with them half the time and they’re throwing this party and… you can’t just be naked.”

“It’s traditional,” Luna said.“Three hundred years ago, all witches were married naked.”

“I don’t care,” Pansy said.“Luna, please, they’ve rented this giant garden place and it’s their way of saying they approve. All your friends will be there.Draco, who passes for my friend, will be there.I don’t care what people did before they had proper robes and proper shops, and you can stay naked the whole honeymoon, I don’t care, but you have to wear robes to the wedding.”

Luna smiled into the mirror and Pansy swore because Luna knew – _knew_ – that she melted whenever Luna’s nose crinkled up that way.“My pretty, pretty Luna,” she said desperately, “Please.I love you.I want to love this day too, and that’s going to be very, very hard if I have to worry about you getting sunburned the whole time.”

Luna said, “Do you look nice in your robes?”

Pansy pictured herself in the white dress, fitted to her waist and flaring out like the biggest princess ball gown ever created with layers of ruffled skirts.It was absurd.It was ridiculous. It was the girliest wedding robe anyone had ever seen.She loved it so much. "I do,” she said.“I look beautiful.”

Luna turned to grab Pansy’s hands.“Good,” she said.“That’s good.”

“You only love me for my looks,” Pansy said with an affected sniff. 

“Mmm,” Luna said.She kissed Pansy’s fingertips.“It helps you like my cooking.”

“You’e an excellent cook,” Pansy said.

“I sometimes forget the sugar,” Luna said.

Pansy shrugged. “Sugar’s bad for you,” she said.“You going to wear the robes?”

Luna smiled and Pansy opened her mouth to argue again until Luna said, “If it will make you happy,” she said.“I’ll wear the robes.”

And she did. And they lived happily ever after.


End file.
